How much of your computer works the way you want it to, and how much have you simply learned to tolerate?
The awkward sequence of clicks. The feature you loved on another machine. The small irritation you encounter so often that you’ve stopped noticing it. Over time, it becomes surprisingly easy to confuse knowing your way around something with having it the way you want.
I’ve been thinking about this while building Familiar on Omarchy.
Omarchy gives you a Linux desktop with a strong set of defaults and room to change them. For me, that has opened up the possibility of making a computer feel deeply personal: shaping how it behaves around my own taste, habits and imagination.
With Familiar, I’m working towards my own combination of the things I love about Linux and macOS. The freedom to change things. A dock that feels right. Familiar window controls. A desktop that works with the way I want to use it.
I get to decide what “better” looks like, then keep building towards it.
That is a wonderful feeling. Something as ordinary as opening an application becomes a little more satisfying when you’ve had a say in how it works. Your preferences become visible in the machine you use every day.
And a preference is enough reason to try.
Recently, I got AirDrop working between my Dell XPS and my iPhone. That builds on the work others have shared through OmDrop and its Omarchy plugin.
I love that example because the desire behind it is so simple. I have a computer. I have a phone. I want to send something between them. They’re both mine, and I want them to work together.
Getting that working makes you wonder what else you’ve accepted unnecessarily.
There is a particular joy in taking something you assumed you had to live with and discovering you can change it. Each time it happens, you become a little more willing to question the next thing.
Agents have made that feeling much more accessible to me.
For a small, specific problem, a ten-minute discussion can take me from an idea to a tool I can try. I can explain what’s annoying me, describe what I wish would happen, and work through a version that suits me. Using it gives me something concrete to react to, so I can keep refining it.
That shortens the distance between having a preference and doing something about it.
It also makes room for a kind of software I think deserves much more attention: tools whose entire audience might be one person.
A tool can earn its place by saving you a few irritating steps every day. It can follow your peculiar way of organising things, put exactly the information you care about within reach, or make a repetitive task feel effortless. Its value can be completely obvious to you, even if nobody else would ever download it.
That seems like a perfectly good reason for it to exist.
We spend so much time discussing what agents mean for the companies building software. I’m increasingly interested in what they mean for the people using it. How many ideas have we dismissed because making them felt like too much effort? How many little tools would we enjoy if we felt able to ask for something more specific?
The ability to make those things changes what you bother to imagine.
You start noticing opportunities. You become more precise about what you like. You find yourself asking whether a particular behaviour is necessary, or simply the way someone originally chose to implement it.
Your computer becomes something you can have an opinion about all the way down.
This possibility rests on decades of work by people building and maintaining Linux and open-source software. Omarchy has given me a way into that world that makes me want to participate. Agents have helped me turn that enthusiasm into things I can actually use.
The community adds another dimension to it. Someone shares a tool that solves their problem. You recognise part of your own problem in it. You build on their work, discover something, and have something useful to contribute back.
The AirDrop work is a good example. Making my setup more personal depended on other people being willing to share what they had built. That makes me want to do the same.
We can benefit from the same foundations and end up with very different computers. Different priorities, different workflows, different ideas of what feels right. There is room for all of that.
Of course, shaping your own setup involves work. There are bugs to fix, changes to check and decisions to revisit. A promising first version still needs to survive everyday use. The satisfaction comes partly from getting those details right.
And Omarchy won’t be for everyone.
You might need particular software, prefer another desktop, or have absolutely no interest in making your computer a project. A setup that already does everything you want is a good outcome. Enjoying your tools can include leaving them alone.
But I think the question Omarchy has prompted for me travels much further than Linux.
Have I chosen this setup because it suits me, or have I become comfortable with its limitations?
That question applies to the applications we use, the workflows we repeat and the little compromises we’ve stopped recognising as compromises. Some will be worth keeping. Others might turn out to be surprisingly easy to change.
You can begin with one.
Pick something about your computer that you’ve quietly accepted. Describe how you would actually like it to work. Be particular. Follow the idea far enough to find out whether you can make it happen.
Maybe there’s already a tool that gets you there. Maybe you can adapt something someone else has shared. Maybe you and an agent can build the small, oddly specific thing you’ve been wishing existed.
For me, that is the excitement of computing right now: having more scope to make something personal, powered by my own imagination.
If you were building your setup around yourself today, would you build the one you’re currently using?
A father of two, a builder of software, and someone who finds it difficult to leave an interesting idea alone.
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